Don Andres, a wealthy and powerful businessman, awaits impatiently the birth of his first born son. Simon is immediately the pride and joy of his father, but as he gets older his parents notice that Simon prefers to play with dolls and dress up in girls clothes. Despite his father’s attempt to correct what he sees as misbehavior, nothing can change Simon’s interests. Eventually, against his mothers protest, Simon’s father kicks him out of the house. Simon goes to the city and gets a job at a night club where he becomes a popular entertainer. A year later, his father runs into him at the club, not recognizing his own son as the beautiful young woman he is talking to. Simon keeps his secret disguise towards his father only to learn that his father’s past is rich with secrets of its own. (Spanish with English subtitles)
“Simon, el Gran Varon”
Possibility Wasted
Amos Lassen
Sometimes when I sit down to watch a movie, I tell myself that I am really going to like it and the majority of the times I find myself liking something that I never thought I would care for. Unfortunately this was not the case with the Mexican film, “Simon, el Gran Varon”. There was a lot going for the film but for some reason it did mot all come together. The story had great possibilities but it just never got off of the ground.
Simon is the first-born so of a wealthy Mexican businessman and his father, Don Andreas dotes on him. However as Simon grows older, he becomes fond of dressing up in women’s clothing and playing with dolls. Don Andreas banishes him from the family home and disinherits him and Simon takes to the streets until he finds work as a nightclub performer and it just so happens that his father is a regular at that club. Don Andreas does not recognize his son when he appears as a beautiful young woman and this forces him to disclose some of his own secrets.
The movie attempts to show the hardships of a gay boy having to deal with his father’s expectations of being the type of man he wants him to be. The movie could have been such a sensitive study but instead it is played as a soap opera. Both the acting and the production quality are really bad. There is n semblance of sensitivity here and the entire film comes across as a waste of time,
0 (No Stars)Independent does not always mean cutting edge
This independent movie from mexico gives "indi" movies a bad name. The acting is so bad, that for the first 10 minutues, I thought I was watching outtakes, not the actual film! The English subtitles are so inaccurate, so appallingly misspelled, that I thought they were a joke as well. Oh no, the 2-dimensional stereotypes just drag you through the muck and mire of this awful movie. If I'd saved me receipt, I would've sent it back after I watched it. Instead, I just threw the movie away as soon as I finished it.
